Digital Marketing And Social Media PR – The Future Buzz

I rather like having discussions with Mitch Joel, he gives me good food-for-thought. That’s because we grew up in different times – I have only known a digital society, he has seen both a digital and analog. Due to this we tend to look at things through a different lens.

Previously when he argued print is not dead, I made the point that it may not be dead, but it’s on life support and that digital is now the master copy.

Mitch wrote something else that struck me recently. He made several different points so I’m going to respond to a few parts bit by bit:

DRM is failure. It will never work because the whole concept of digital rights management goes counter to the nature of an open system. Every industry which has previously tried to use it has failed miserably and future attempts will be no different.

Ignore the fact that DRM disrespects customers and essentially treats them like criminals for a minute and consider what it represents: an attempt to close/control the most useful and beneficial network our society has seen because it disrupted a dated business model. DRM tries to treat the web as if the same rules of tangible media apply – which of course is not the case.

Looks like some of the early adopter crowd are waking up from their Twitter-induced dreams.

There are several conversations around the web about it this week, but I’ll sum the reasons you should blog and not just Tweet simply: microblogging (or any social platform where you don’t control the rules) doesn’t replace the power of an independent web publishing platform where you control the vertical and the horizontal. Rather, if used properly it actually makes your independent outlet that much more powerful.

I’m a big fan of psychologist and author Robert Greene. Previously, I deconstructed his landmark book, the 48 laws of power, and interpreted how the laws apply to blogging.

It was a pleasant surprise for me to discover he has written two other books outlining laws applicable to the areas of seduction and war. War strategy is especially compelling because businesses take cues from military strategic successes in areas such as how they react to changes in the marketplace from competition and how they position their external communications.

I’m reading a fascinating book titled Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt. It’s essentially the psychology/sociology of traffic, and offers the most in-depth look at interactions expressed through driving I’ve ever read.

An interesting bit from the book explains something you’ve probably experienced. Andrew Velkey, a psychology professor at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University uncovered the following conclusion after he studied the behavior of parkers at a Wal-Mart in Mississippi (paraphrased):

There’s an interesting article over at The Liberal discussing the future of economic models involving free. It’s a good read, and presents some viewpoints which run counter to what Chris Anderson has been writing lately. Despite the fact that I’m inclined to have common ground with Chris, (especially as an artist who embraces the concept of free) I enjoy reading and interpreting all viewpoints.

There’s one graph in the article that struck me, and it’s actually the one part which has nothing to do with free economic models, rather, it is on the cultural implications of technology:

It is an enigma of all technologies that we only come to understand their latent cultural function once they are no longer necessary. With the dawn of television, we came to recognize that cinema was not just about moving pictures, but an opportunity to have a night out in public. With the dawn of email, we now see that letter-writing is not just about conveying information, but a way of demonstrating greater affection or respect for the recipient.